Ask the Author: Leonard Durso
Answered Questions (3)
Leonard Durso
Actually the inspiration for Istanbul Days, Istanbul Nights came from an earlier book I wrote called Night & Day which took place in New York and had a cast of international characters working on a college campus and the relationships that developed between them. It, too, used a play motif and my agent at the time tried unsuccessfully to sell that book for two years. It was a disappointment for both of us that editors seemed to complain there were too many characters and too many interconnecting plots. Fast forward to my life as an educator in Turkey and my experiences as a foreigner working on a college campus with Turks. I began to see the possibilities of incorporating that same motif but set in Turkey. My life here is really a straddling of two cultures and always trying to find the balance needed to maintain my New York identity with the identity developing as an expat living among and relating to the people here. That is ultimately what the book is about.
Leonard Durso
Ah, advice. Well first off, don’t pay too much attention to what people say about your work. Just keep plugging along trying to find your own voice, keep reading and don’t be concerned with trying to emulate other writers but let them feed your imagination and open you up to other ways of doing things. And don’t be always looking for inspiration. It will come when it comes, but just develop the discipline you will need to get the work done because in the final analysis it’s the discipline that will carry you through to the end.
Ah, advice. Well first off, don’t pay too much attention to what people say about your work. Just keep plugging along trying to find your own voice, keep reading and don’t be concerned with trying to emulate other writers but let them feed your imagination and open you up to other ways of doing things. And don’t be always looking for inspiration. It will come when it comes, but just develop the discipline you will need to get the work done because in the final analysis it’s the discipline that will carry you through to the end.
Leonard Durso
I usually just read. It can be poetry, a novel, or history, or even newspapers online like The New York Times or Hürriyet Daily News. Occasionally I listen to music and play the only computer game I know: solitaire.
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